Researchers Reveal Scale of Threat Posed by Smartphone E-Waste
Wednesday, March 20, 2019 - 11:57:53
Academics working at the University of Plymouth have raised awareness about the problematic life cycle of the average smartphone, with a viral video in which a modern device is pulverised in a blender hitting the internet to illustrate concerns surrounding these portable gadgets.
The experts were able to break down the phone into its constituent parts and assess the chemical make-up in order to find out which materials were used, where they came from and what problems they might pose further down the line if not processed in a sustainable way.
Spokesperson Dr Arjan Kijkstra pointed out that most people do not think about where the minerals used to make their mobiles come from, overlooking the often problematic sourcing of things like cobalt from parts of the world where there are ethical complications to the mining of such materials.
Large amounts of metal ore need to be mined and purified in order to make a single smart handset, which means that if owners fail to recycle their old phones at the end of their usable life span, all of this initial effort is going to waste.
Selling unwanted smartphones means that resources can be injected back into the manufacturing process, and there will be less need to expend time and money on extracting them in their raw forms from the earth.
This is why so many are calling for the creation of a circular economy around the act of mobile ownership and general electronics consumerism. The more devices that are recycled, the less need there will be to do environmental and social damage in poorer parts of the world.
While blitzing a phone in a blender may seem like a publicity stunt, it is also the best way to garner attention for an issue that is often overlooked.
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